Happily, Ever After?

Valentine’s Day and I have always had a complicated relationship.  Growing up, I grew up believing in fairy tales. Disney, princesses, princes, and fairy godparents populated all my expectations around love.  I always felt like love was this epic adventure that carries you through the rest of your life together.  It comes when you least expect it (always when you are young) and there is a love at first sight moment! It’s magical, monumental, and life-altering.  I always thought my prince would come one day and life would be infinitely better.  Needless to say, that isn’t real life.  

I grew up watching my much older brother go from woman to woman, desperate to be loved and needed by his partner.  I began to realize that he wasn’t the night in shining armor and thinking he was had actually made him kind of a jerk.  It seemed like he could never find someone who was “worthy of his love” and who could “be the perfect God-fearing wife”.  He used to try to teach me what I needed to do when I came to the age when I started dating.  I shouldn’t be too desperate, he must be Christian, and Jesus has picked out the perfect person for me so don’t rush it.  This is the same man who married a woman after six months of skype dating from another country.  That relationship, like most of his others, fell apart.  But he is married now, and he has a kid.  So maybe, this one will stick? I won’t hold my breath.  

In addition to my brother, as I got older, I began to realize that my parents didn’t have the perfect marriage that I saw on TV, and they weren’t divorced like some of my friends’ parents.  When I was younger, I couldn’t comprehend why people stayed together if they didn’t like each other all the time.  As an adult, I understand it more, but it’s a lot more nuanced now and a lot less magical.

My sisters have given their hearts to many toxic boys throughout their years of dating, and I have seen them lose parts of who they are in these bad relationships.  My little sister is engaged to a man who, to my limited knowledge, has no desire to do anything with his life but play video games.  I have held my older sister so many times as she has cried about this boy, or that one, who she thought could have been “the one”.  I have had to watch many people in my life be dumped, abused, bulldozed, and stuck in unhealthy romantic situations, and I have just about had enough of it!  It is hard to see the lovey dovey Valentine’s sentiments when I am surrounded by heartache on all sides.  

In high school, my godmother told me that she wished she hadn’t dated so young.  She didn’t know who she was, so how could she get to know someone else?  I took that question to heart and swore off dating in high school, and honestly it was the right decision for me.  I took control of my mental health struggles, dedicated myself to school and theatre, and I figured out that I am queer.  It took a lot for me to reconcile my queerness with my faith, and to process my trauma and depression.  Honestly, I could not have brought anyone romantically along on that journey.  However, I felt at a severe disadvantage when I got to college, and everyone knew how the whole dating thing worked.  I just went on my first date in January of 2022, and it was not good.  I’m talking “dead fiancé, cheated in the past, last ex was a month ago” not good. With all this swirling around, a part of me wants to give up on love and just grow old with my dog.  It would save me a lot of awkward conversations, potential heartbreak, and compromises. And yet, a large part of me is still a hopeless romantic, just a lot more realistic.  I think that I can chose who “the one” is.  I now know that dates aren’t as much pressure as I thought they were.  And you don’t have to give yourself up to be with your partner, at least I won’t be doing that.  I like who I am, and I think I’ll find someone else who does too.  It’s just going to take a lot more daydreaming, overanalyzing, and conversations with my mom before I figure it out.